


Indiscretion

by BG97



Category: Stray Kids (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Dark, Ambiguous/Open Ending, Blood Kink, Blood and Injury, Broken Bones, Carving Words into Skin, Childhood Friends, Disjointed narrative, Enhanced Interrogation Techniques, Explicit Sexual Content, Flashbacks, Grief/Mourning, Horror, Kidnapping, Loss, M/M, Mental Instability, Murder, Non-Consensual Bondage, Non-Consensual Drug Use, Not Safe Sane Nor Consensual, Psychological Torture, Rape/Non-Consensual Sexual Content, Revenge, Sadism, Serial Killers, Sexual Slavery, Temperature Control, Torture, Unreliable Narrator, Unsafe Wax Play, Violence, Watersports, homocidal ideation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-10
Updated: 2019-09-12
Packaged: 2020-10-14 06:40:57
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 2
Words: 14,418
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20596382
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BG97/pseuds/BG97
Summary: He doesn’t understand. He doesn’t fucking understand what’s happening or why.Hyunjin doesn’t deserve this. He doesn’t deserve any of it.Please mind all tags and warnings.





	1. Innocence

**Author's Note:**

> Welcome, friends. I hope you're all doing well.
> 
> If you have not already, I really do insist that you read through all tags and warnings.
> 
> Note: Every tag after "flashbacks" and "disjointed narrative" is referring to scenes that are occurring within the flashbacks, which are formatted in italics. There's no sexual content within the primary timeline of the story, however, the flashbacks (and everything mentioned in the tags) are explicit and constitute a good portion of this chapter. As such, please, please, please proceed with caution.
> 
> IMPORTANT:  
Under absolutely no circumstances do I condone or in anyway support or encourage the situations depicted in this fictional story. This story is fucked up. It's disgusting. All themes are being explored purely for fictional and literary purposes. I should not have to remind you all that violence, torture, sexual assault, and kidnapping are horrible and unacceptable and leave life-altering, lasting, if not irreparable, effects on victims and their loved ones.
> 
> This first chapter is Hyunjin's POV, the second chapter is Chan's.
> 
> All that out of the way, for those still interested in the story, I hope you enjoy.

Hyunjin’s going to die.

That’s the only rational, logical conclusion he can come to.

He doesn’t know what happened… or where he is. It’s hard to think, a million thoughts racing through his mind, all disjointed and unproductive.

He’s going to die.

It’s dark. So fucking dark.

He can't see shit.

The only sounds are from his labored breathing and squirming… he’s tied up on a chair, he’s pretty sure; he can hear the muted creaks of old metal, feel the cool surface digging into his skin…

Fuck. 

He’s naked.

Not naked, he still has his underwear, but... close. The air is chilled against his exposed skin as it begins to flush in panic.

The skin around his lips feels tight, wrong, his jaw stuck closed and his mouth blocked off… duct tape probably. He’s never had his mouth taped shut before, but if he had to imagine what it’d feel like… it’d be this. Fuck.

There’s a bag over his head… or, well, some kind of loose cloth. The fabric feels thin… he’s not struggling to breathe, or anything, but it’s so fucking dark.

He hates the fucking dark. Hates not being able to see, being so fucking vulnerable.

He doesn’t understand what the fuck is going on. He can’t remember anything, but he _ hurts _. His head is pounding, making it all the more difficult to think. He can catalogue a few other pains… his shoulders and wrists… possibly from having his hands tied behind his back for who knows how long before he woke up here, his left ankle… he tries shifting it, but it’s secured to the chair leg and he can’t test it like he’d prefer. It’s throbbing and just lightly pressing against the ropes binding it down has him choking in pain.

He’s not sure… even if he could somehow get himself untied… what if he can’t walk on it?

He’s going to fucking die.

He needs a plan, needs to just fucking calm down and think of something to do, but it’s pointless. He’s panicking, breaths growing increasingly more frantic, heart rate spiking, tears pricking at his eyes.

He’s going to fucking die here.

oOo

He has no idea how long he’s been sitting here, trapped in the darkness.

He exhausted himself eventually, thinks he might have even slept for a while. Every joint in his body is screaming at the unnatural position it’s been held in for too long; he lost feeling in his fingers what must have been hours ago. He’s tied too tightly.

He’s still completely clueless about anything in the room beyond his body and the chair he’s bound to. There’s no light, or none that he can see through the fabric around his face, and everything is deadly quiet and still around him, only broken by his uneven breathing and subtle movements against the bindings.

All he knows is that it’s very dark, very silent, and very cold.

He hadn’t registered the chill in the air when he first woke up, his panic keeping him from realizing just how cold it was… from realizing a lot, actually. He started shivering at some point, which just made everything so much worse; his muscles ached and protested as they tensed against his will, his shudders irritating the already raw skin around the ropes… 

It’s not just around his wrists and ankles, but criss-crossed over his chest and waist, as well, keeping him firmly secured in an upright sitting position. He can slouch a bit, but it just makes the unforgiving ropes dig in more… he thinks he might have broken the skin trying to struggle and then, eventually, letting himself go limp.

His neck… that hurts the worst. His head is completely unsupported; he has no choice but to hold it up or strain his spine trying to rest it on his shoulder or chest. The muscles are aching from trying and failing to keep it up as he tired himself out. There’s no fucking relief.

He has no idea how long he’s been here.

He has friends, coworkers, people who should start to realize he’s missing, soon. Not that he trusts the police to find him…

But someone has to be looking for him.

Oh god, Felix. 

He can't fucking remember… was he taken from the apartment? If not… he has to get out of here.

God, he can't fucking die.

He just needs to get back to Felix.

oOo

There’s no warning before there is suddenly light blinding him, even through the cloth, his eyelids; it’s excruciating after being in the darkness for so long.

He’s tired, disoriented. His whole body is screaming in pain.

The sound of footsteps drawing near is too much.

He’s sobbing behind the gag, body twisting hopelessly, ripping at his skin even more. There’s tears streaming down his face, blood and sweat trickling across his skin…

None of it can fully distract him from the aching humiliation of soaking his underwear in piss, the acrid scent quickly filling the air, hot liquid flowing down his legs, dripping onto the floor below and stinging the torn skin of his ankles.

He’s panicking, mind completely shutting down as terror and mortification war in his mind.

He’s going to die.

He’s going to fucking die and he’ll never see his mom again or know if Felix’s alright or-

The chair wobbles precariously underneath him, the inertia of his body threatening to topple it for a heart stopping moment… before it does and he’s crashing to the ground.

The right side of his face slams against concrete, the thin bag over his head doing absolutely nothing to soften the blow. His shoulder is jarred, skin tearing as it makes contact with the rough surface. His probably broken ankle is yanked harshly against its binding, flaring up in a sharp, horrific pain.

His jaw throbs where it was struck.

They hit him.

He’s frozen for a moment in shock before it all catches back up to him and his body is wracked with sobs and cries of pain, all muffled by the tape and hood.

“Are you kidding me?” The voice is cruel, masculine, a slight accent that he knows is familiar, but can’t hope to identify right now, “fucking disgusting.”

He hurts so fucking much. Everything hurts. His wrists are bleeding, they have to be. There’s something wrong with his shoulder, really wrong, and his face, _ God _.

oOo

There’s no sense of the passage of time in the basement. Hyunjin has nothing but his heart beats to measure the time by. 

He gives up trying eventually.

The only constant is the man. The one that’s keeping him here.

He doesn’t know his name, or literally anything about him… except that he hates Hyunjin.

The feeling is mutual.

He comes… maybe once a day? Every few hours? 

Hyunjin has seen him about five times now. He comes down, takes off the hood and the duct tape. The second visit, Hyunjin managed to convince him to untie his arms, too. He literally cried as they were shifted, his right shoulder burning with sharp, horrible pain, his hands lighting up, buzzing as circulation was returned to them. He thought he was going to lose his fingers or something, but being able to move his arms made him realize he should be more worried about what he’s certain is a broken collarbone from when he fell.

The man yanked his hurt right arm forward, even when Hyunjin shrieked and screamed in pain. He was slapped, again, for making noise. Rough fingers pressed into the swollen skin around his shoulder, making fat tears wet Hyunjin’s cheeks for the countless time since he’d been brought into the basement.

It was definitely broken.

The man didn’t tie it behind his back anymore, thank god, securing his wrist, instead, to the ropes on his chest. His left arm was still twisted back whenever he was left alone, bound to the back of the chair. Even if he was strong enough to try to get out, it was still pointless.

When the man came down, he brought Hyunjin water and usually some bread or rice. He’d let him eat and drink, even got him more water when he asked, once. He’d untie him enough that he could get off the chair, drag him to the toilet in the corner of the room. Hyunjin was told he’d be punished if he had another accident…

There was an open shower there, too, which Hyunjin had been dragged into on that first meeting. After he pissed his pants like a fucking baby.

Beyond the toilet and shower, his chair, the room was completely empty, a massive open space, just solid concrete flooring and walls. The stairs are on the far wall from where the man usually keeps Hyunjin's chair. When the man leaves, Hyunjin has until he reaches the top of those stairs to mentally prepare himself for the darkness. He's never ready for it. It never fails to get his heartbeat racing, adrenaline racing through his veins...

The man hurt him, made him walk on his definitely broken ankle and was rough and cruel whenever he touched him, but he hadn’t really done… anything else, yet. So… having someone else there, having the lights on… it was better than being left alone, bound, gagged, blinded...

There was just the questions. The man always came with questions.

As soon as Hyunjin was done using the toilet, secured back to the fucking chair, they’d start. He never knew how to answer, didn’t want to answer.

The whole situation was so confusing, and he could feel himself going insane from pain, hunger, lack of proper sleep… 

He doesn’t know what the man wants from him.

He never answers, usually doesn’t talk at all. The man just gets angrier whenever he asks to be let go, for some clothes, proper food, anything really.

So he doesn’t talk.

He studies the man’s face, memorizing every detail, promising himself that he’ll get out of here eventually and make him pay for what he’s done.

oOo

Eventually, the man snaps.

Hyunjin should have seen it coming, should have known he could only refuse to talk for so long before the man lost patience. It doesn’t matter. 

He’s going to die.

Hyunjin screamed as the man grabbed him by his hair, pulling him bodily onto the dirty floor, still bound in the chair. He writhed and shrieked, tears streaming down his face as he was dragged across the concrete, one of the man’s hands fisted in his dirty hair, strands tearing and ripping from his skull, the other wrapped cruelly around the upper arm of his broken shoulder, his weight forcing the shattered bones to shift and grind against one another. The skin of his leg ripped and tore as it was ground into the rough flooring, the chair screeching along with him.

He’s going to die.

He doesn’t understand. He doesn’t fucking understand what’s happening or why.

Hyunjin doesn’t deserve this. He doesn’t deserve any of it.

He’s momentarily confused when the chair is finally righted in the small shower space, his broken cries breaking pitifully as the man reaches for the faucet.

He tries to shake his sore head, tries to beg through his tears, but it’s no use, the spray of ice cold water hits him in the face, stealing the breath from his lungs, his entire body going rigid in shock.

The man says something, but Hyunjin can’t think, wailing as the cold water quickly becomes painful, thousands of tiny needle pricks all over his already chilled and exposed skin.

He’s going to fucking die.

He screams as the man turns and leaves, screams as the lights are shut off and he’s plunged into darkness, screams and screams until they die in his throat.

oOo

_ Felix’s body is so warm pressed against his sweat-soaked skin. It’s hot in the room, so hot, but Felix feels so good, so soft and nice under his hands, around his cock. _

“Hyunjin.” He’s so cold… it shouldn’t be possible to be this cold; why hasn’t he died yet?

_ “Hyunjin!” God, his name sounds so good falling from Felix’s lips, his pretty little body twisting and contorting, writhing on the sheets under him. He’s art, so unbelievably beautiful… and all Hyunjin’s. _

“Fucking wake up!” He’s numb, so numb and _ cold. _ Why won’t the man just let him die?

_ “Wake up, sleepyhead,” his voice is sing-songy, affectionate. The pretty boy in his bed groans, trying to roll away from Hyunjin’s hands, his voice. He’s so fucking cute. _

He can’t scream anymore, his throat and lungs gave out so long ago, but he tries. God, he tries.

The water, it’s boiling him, too fucking hot, pain stabbing him everywhere, so much worse than the cold.

_ Hyunjin could never get tired of this, his beautiful boy all splayed out for him, his pretty little cries and hisses music to Hyunjin’s ears. The candle has grown warm in Hyunjin’s hand, burnt down until he hardly has a safe amount to hold, but he doesn’t want to stop. _

It hurts, it fucking hurts. His skin is on fire; he’s going to fucking die.

_ “How does it feel baby?” It’s mesmerizing, watching each drop of wax splash onto Felix’s already coated, flushed skin. _

_ “Hurts,” his voice is raspy, deep as ever. He’s squirming, breathing hard, tears and snot streaming down his face, every uncovered inch of skin flushed the prettiest shade of pink. Fucking beautiful. _

He wants to die. Why won’t the man just let him die?

Everything fucking hurts; his skin is burning, and he has no idea how many cuts he’s torn open trying to get away, how many broken bones he’s destroyed… he wants it to be over. He just wants it all to end.

_ “It’s okay, sweetheart, we’re all done,” Felix’s sobs don’t subside, but he presses his cheek so sweetly into Hyunjin’s hand. It’s precious. His boy is always so perfect for him. _

_ Hyunjin idly picks at the wax, taking in Felix’s pitiful little whimpers as he revealed the burnt skin underneath. _

Hyunjin has wanted the ropes off for so long, but the feeling of knots being undone, rough cording pulling away from his torn and battered, inflamed skin… there’s no relief.

_ “Shhh, baby, let’s get these off you,” Felix always pulls too hard; Hyunjin’s starting to think he likes it when the soft cotton ropes dig and scratch at his skin, likes tugging the knots impossibly tighter around his tender wrists and ankles. _

Hyunjin can't move, can't think, can hardly breathe… he just wants to be home with his boy.

How fucking long has it been?

_ "Don't worry baby, I won't be gone long," Felix is so fucking precious, whining and squirming, straining against his bindings, trying to reach for him. _

_ Too precious. _

"I-" everything hurts, "I have-"

"What?" The man won't get off him, pulling him up in a sitting position, hands rubbing over his impossibly pained body.

"I have to go home…" his voice is shattered, croaking and barely audible, fucking ruined.

_ Felix, the boy is so pretty, so sweet and trusting, clinging to Hyunjin's side. He's drunk, at least a little, stumbling at his side, "whoa, okay we should probably get you home, cutie." _

_ Those eyes, so big and bright looking up at him, shiney and just a hint unfocused from the alcohol, "can, um… can we…?" _

_ Hyunjin grinned down at the boy, he was so adorable, "wanna come back to my place?" _

_ "Yes! Yeah, uh, that sounds like a great idea!" Fucking precious. Hyunjin got so lucky with this one. _

"You're not going anywhere," Hyunjin's eyelids are so heavy, and he doesn't want to look at the man glaring down at him like that, "not until you tell me the fucking truth."

Hyunjin doesn't understand what the man wants from him, why he's fucking doing this, asking these questions.

He wants to fucking die, but he _ needs _ to get back to Felix.

oOo

"I don't understand what's so fucking hard about this," Hyunjin screamed as the man's fingernails dug into his broken shoulder, grinding the loose, shattered remains of his collarbone into muscle and tendons. He's tugging desperately at the ropes, trying to get away, tears and snot streaming down his face.

"Just fucking answer me!" His head snaps to the side, lolling on his exhausted, cramping neck.

The man's going to kill him.

"I don't know what you want!" He's sobbing, pathetic, his voice shattered, but he can't care. Everything hurts _ so fucking much _.

_ "What- what are you doing?" Felix. Those gorgeous eyes looking up at him, so wide, welling with the promise of tears. He's so fucking beautiful. _

_ "It's okay, baby," Hyunjin loves his voice, how deep and guttural his groans are, but how they can shift to high-pitched little whines and moans in a second. _

He's scared, panicking. The man is mad. Furious.

He’s going to fucking die.

He’s grabbed by his sweaty hair, his head forced upright. He tries to focus his eyes on what the man has shoved in his face... he feels like he’s going to pass out.

_ “Do you know what this is?” Felix always looks so fucking pretty when he’s crying. He’s gagged, drool slipping down his chin and onto his chest, so messy as he shakes his head; poor thing looks exhausted. _

_ “That’s okay, sweetheart,” Hyunjin tugs on his boy’s little body, dragging him closer. He’s gotten a lot thinner, recently, “I don’t think it’ll hurt that much.” _

“This man,” Chan’s eyes are enraged, his nostrils flaring, Hyunjin forces himself to look at the phone held up in front of him. There’s a… picture on the screen.

Oh.

Oh shit.

“This,” Chan shoved the phone an inch closer to Hyunjin’s face, like he wanted to smash it into his head, “is Lee Felix, my little brother.”

Yeah. Yeah it is.

This is all starting to make a lot of sense.

The picture is of Felix, his Felix… but not... at the same time. He’d forgotten what his boy used to be like, had only had a brief glimpse all those months ago. 

_ The bar was disgusting, floor covered in a sticky film of long-ago-spilled beer, trashy house music bursting from cheap speakers on every available surface. Hyunjin hates places like this, and, really, he shouldn’t be back here. _

_ This was where he found Minho, after all… and it’s not like that had turned out in his favor. _

_ He still had to figure out what to do with the mess back at his apartment. Fuck. _

_ But he was out of options, and there was no better place in the city to find someone like he was looking for… someone like the boy situated at the corner table, playing some drinking game with a group of friends. _

_ Hyunjin had noticed him the second he walked in, laughing brightly at something his friend had said, small body swimming in an oversized hoodie and jeans. _

_ He knew immediately that he was the one. _

The Felix in the photo is wearing the same hoodie from that night, Hyunjin would recognize it anywhere. He looks good, amazing… beautiful and healthy. His smile is just as bright as that night, dripping pure sunshine, and his eyes sparkle just as infinitely, made of starstuff and shining with galaxies hidden within.

_ The boy startles when he’s approached, bright eyes going wide as they lock in on Hyunjin’s face. It’s those eyes that really lock him in, give him no choice. _

_ He had to have him. _

It’s a bit odd to wrap his head around the fact that this Felix, the one in the photo… the one from that night, he was this man’s Felix. It doesn’t change anything, really. The Felix in the photo, he was beautiful, stunning, full of everything that had attracted Hyunjin to him in the first place, his potential still unrealized…

_ It was almost painfully easy. Felix - as he’d learned the boy was called, the name foreign, but still beautiful and right on Hyunjin’s tongue - was so innocent, naive. It was endearing, adorable, how he clung onto every kind word and praise Hyunjin was willing to give him, how eagerly he accepted the older boy’s attention… _

_ It was almost embarrassing how quickly Felix agreed to go home with him. _

Because this Felix was gorgeous and bright, but he was incomplete. His Felix…

His Felix was perfect.

Hyunjin had made him perfect; all those long days and sleepless nights, the blood, sweat, and tears they’d both shed breaking this man’s Felix down so Hyunjin could build him back up, shape him, mold him into something that wasn’t just beautiful, but something absolutely and undeniably _ perfect. _

Something all his.

_ “What are you?” _

_ Felix’s wide eyes, so pretty shining with tears, looked up at him. Poor thing must be in so much pain, “I’m- I’m yours” _

_ Hyunjin couldn’t help the smile from stretching across his face, “Good boy, my what?” _

_ A hint of panic crossed his boy’s beautiful face, his eyes flickering desperately as he tried to figure out how to answer. So precious. Hyunjin thrust into his tight little body particularly hard. “W-whatever you… ah! Whatever you want me to be!” _

The Felix in the photo… it was Felix, but also a stranger in so many ways.

“I don’t know that person.”

Wrong answer, he can tell from the way the man’s eyes darken, but it’s not a fucking lie. He barely met the Felix in that picture, the Felix he knows is so much _ more _.

_ “Just a little more, baby,” Hyunjin can’t possibly restrain Felix anymore than he already has, but even the slight shifting movements he’s making threaten to ruin the gift he’s trying to give him. He tries to be understanding; it must hurt, after all. _

_ He’s so careful, takes his time… this isn’t something that’d be easy to fix if he fucks it up… and he plans to be able to enjoy it for a very long time. _

_ This one’s special. _

_ That’s why Hyunjin is giving him his name, three intricate hanja characters, Hwang Hyun Jin, carved meticulously into the space under his collarbone. _

oOo

Hyunjin hates the fucking darkness, but he hates the man more.

There’s no distinguishing the pains on his body, anymore. He has no idea how many times the man has hit him, kicked him, cut him… his entire body is abused, bruised, exposed.

He’s going to fucking die.

And it’s all _ his _fault.

_ “I hate you,” Hyunjin has to steady himself, take deep breaths… he doesn’t like hurting Felix impulsively. He’s not done with him yet, can’t risk killing him before he’s ready. _

_ But sometimes Felix makes it exceptionally difficult. _

_ The words are unacceptable, but Hyunjin can’t deny that the unrestrained fury in Felix’s eyes is gorgeous. Felix is always gorgeous… only sometimes a pain in his ass. _

_ “You can’t hate me, baby,” he sets the bowl of broth to the side, settling himself beside Felix’s bound form. His hands ghost over the boy’s battered skin, noting the way he flinched and tried to move away. Felix loved to test him. _

_ They gently gripped over his thin, frail shoulders, thumbs carefully beginning to press into the sore muscles there. Felix is practically vibrating with tension, trying so hard not to let Hyunjin win. “Just finish this bowl, and I’ll move you somewhere more comfortable, okay?” _

_ His thumbs dig into a knot at the base of Felix’s neck and he gets a soft gasp in response. He counts it as a small victory, “Don’t you miss sleeping in a bed?” _

_ “Not with you.” _

_ Hyunjin has to force his hands to go slack, not tighten around the pretty little neck they rested on. _

_ It’s incredibly fucking difficult. _

_ “Fine.” He stood up abruptly, snatching the bowl from the floor, some of it sloshing onto the wood, “fucking starve.” _

It seems so ridiculous to him, now… how much of Felix’s bullshit he put up with. And for what? Because he was pretty? Had a tight ass? He’s wracking his brain, but after all this time, everything that’s happened to him in this goddamn basement…

He can’t, for the life of him, remember why he thought Felix was so special.

Why he kept him around for so long.

_ “Stop! Please, Hyunjin, please!” God, Felix begged so prettily. He was drenched in sweat, body glistening in the low lighting of Hyunjin’s bedroom. His lean muscles were all tensed, body shaking as Hyunjin continued to swirl his clasped hand over the sensitive tip of his dick. _

_ He’s honestly lost count of how many times he’s made the boy come at this point; he wasn’t even properly coming anymore, just convulsing every so often in what Hyunjin assumed was an orgasm, his poor little cock still hard enough to cut glass, an angry purple color that could be from him or the pills he’d given Felix earlier in the evening… that erection has definitely lasted longer than four hours… poor thing. _

Felix was fun. They’d had a good run together, he supposes.

But was he worth even a fraction of the shit Hyunjin has had to go through? No.

_ “Are you fucking kidding me?!” There’s gasping underneath him, Felix’s face so red, wet with his spit and tears. He’s choking on apologies, but Hyunjin can only see red as the sensitive skin of his dick stings where Felix’s stupid teeth scraped it. _

_ He’s going to fucking pull them out of his head. _

There were so many opportunities to kill Felix. So many chances to be rid of him. Maybe if the man just had his boy’s precious body, he wouldn’t have come after Hyunjin like he did.

_ “God… you’re fucking beautiful like this, baby,” Felix was sobbing into his gag, muscles tensing, hands straining against the cuffs on his wrists. His chest and stomach… those pretty abs… maybe he’d gone a bit overboard. _

_ But, God, the blood streaming down his pretty little body… a million crimson rivers connecting and merging together, pooling around the base of his hips before trickling down the sides of his thighs. Hyunjin fisted his cock, stripping over it rapidly as he took in the sight. He was so fucking close. _

_ He leaned in, tongue dragging up the center of his boy’s abdomen, collecting the blood and sweat coating his soft skin, catching on the deep gashes he’d carved haphazardly into the boy. Felix’s chest was rising and falling so rapidly, his pain and terror so fucking perfect. _

_ Hyunjin dropped the knife in his free hand, unwilling to let go of his cock when he was so close. His fingers caught on Felix’s sweaty hair as he fumbled with the clasp on his gag, finally watching it drop onto his boy’s chest, sliding down his torso, smearing blood and spit in its wake. The pained cry Felix let out from it’s weight dragging across his abused skin was fucking music. _

_ His boy was smart, though… or maybe stupid, clasping his jaw shut as quickly as possible, looking at Hyunjin with those big, beautiful eyes, red with tears and alive with horror and pain. _

_ His defiance was appealing, but Hyunjin was so impatient, so close. His fingers dug harshly into his boy’s soft cheeks, nails breaking the fragile skin as he forced those perfect lips to part for him. _

_ Hyunjin came to the feeling of Felix sobbing into his mouth as he was force fed his own blood. _

Still… there was a part of him that admitted it would be a shame…

_ Hyunjin had thought this many times since he’d decided to keep his pretty boy around, but Felix truly did look the most beautiful like this… _

_ On his knees, wrists cuffed to his ankles, eyes squeezed shut as he sobbed pitifully, choking on Hyunjin’s piss as it streamed straight through his o-ring gag and into his pretty mouth, overflowing and trickling down his chin, over his chest and stinging his still-healing cuts. _

_ Hyunjin had never fucked with this type of thing before, but he was instantly hooked. There was something so inherently right about it, how fucking worthless and disgusting it made his gorgeous boy look, how fucking owned he was. _

It didn’t matter.

None of it fucking mattered.

He and Felix were nice while it lasted, but now… this man had truly ruined everything.

If he was going to kill Hyunjin… then fine.

Felix could fucking rot with him.


	2. Guilt

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Chris doesn’t know what changes, but it’s not a sudden thing, until it is._
> 
> _It slow, creeping, at first, but he starts to gradually exhaust himself with the hopelessness._
> 
> _He starts to get angry._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welcome, friends, to chapter two.
> 
> If you have not already, please read all tags and warnings.
> 
> The Major Character Death warning and all tags after "unreliable narrator" refer specifically to this chapter.
> 
> Note: There is no explicit sexual content/non-con in this chapter, but it _is_ mentioned.
> 
> Second Note: There is a nonconsensual sexual situation discussed that involves two minors during this chapter. As nothing was explicit, I chose not to include the Underage warning, but would be willing to if someone thought I should.
> 
> Third Note: To avoid confusion, I chose to use the name Chris in reference to Bang Chan in this AU as he spent more of his life in Australia here. Minor thing, but just wanted to quick explain.
> 
> Finally, I gave the full disclaimer in the first chapter's note, but, as a reminder, this is a work of fiction. Murder, sexual assault, torture, vigilantism, assault, etc. are all justly punishable crimes that ruin lives. I do not condone any behaviors depicted in this work, in real life; all situations are being explored through a fictional lens.

Chris will always remember the first day he met Felix.

He was eight and Felix was five, one of the youngest kids at the neighborhood party his parents were hosting. He didn’t notice him much at first, laughed with the other older boys when someone told Felix to stop bothering them and go play with the girls…

But then someone pushed Felix... it was some mean kid named Sam that no one liked, but everyone tolerated because he had the best toys. Chris remembers seeing red when everyone else either laughed or pretended not to notice as the little boy burst into tears.

He was grounded for a week, but Sam went home with a broken nose and his mom let him sit inside with Felix for the rest of the party. He got to see his little teary face light up when he pulled out Hannah’s coloring book collection and her brand new box of 120 crayons, the one with the sharpener on the back and everything. She didn’t even get mad at him later.

That night, his dad snuck into his room. 

_ “Your mom would kill me if she knew I told you this,” he tossed a look over his shoulder dramatically, like he expected her to burst through the door any minute. Chris giggled as his dad turned back to him with a conspiratorial grin, leaning in close and stage whispering, “but I am so, so proud of you for what you did today.” _

_ “Don’t get me wrong, you can’t just go around breaking noses, kiddo, but…” he shrugged, “if they deserve it… I’m not about to tell you that’s wrong.” _

Chris didn’t even care that he was grounded after that, and… it just kind of happened, he basically adopted the little boy from down the street. Felix was such a sweet, smiley kid; he was cute as hell, funny and goofy, too.

He started coming around the Bang’s house and Chris hung out at the Lee’s. Their families grew closer until it felt weird for Chris to come home and not see Hannah and Olivia chasing bugs in the yard, their moms chatting and drinking cheap wine in his kitchen, Rachel setting up on their porch swing to do her homework.

The Lee’s, Felix in particular, became a part of his life. They grew up together, practically inseparable, best friends and siblings in every way but literally. His friends teased him about it sometimes, but they never crossed a line; everyone knew that Chris didn’t mess around when it came to Felix.

There were other bullies over the years, but they never lasted long. Felix joked, at one point, that half of the kids in his grade were too scared of Chris to even look at him. 

As they got older, there were arguments, disagreements. Felix blew up at him one night; he was in eighth grade then and Chris had just told him he didn’t like the girl he’d been spending time with. Felix accused him of smothering, being worse than his mom. He didn’t talk to him for four days after that, no matter how many times Chris knocked on his door or how many messages he tried to pass through Felix’s sisters.

Felix ended up in his bedroom, eventually, apologizing for overreacting. Chris felt fucking horrible.

He tried to back off after that, but it was hard. Felix wasn’t the little boy getting pushed around anymore. Yeah, they still watched stupid animes together and raided their families’ fridges at 3am while they talked about whatever pressing teenage drama was going on in their lives, Felix still thought fart jokes were the funniest… he still laughed so easily and was almost always smiling, still loved cuddling up with Chris and having his hair played with… but Felix also started dating and making more friends. He started doing stupid shit like smoking weed and drinking, hooking up…

It was hard not to hold him back, but… Chris did that shit too… Felix was right to say it wasn’t fair that he wasn’t allowed to be a teenager and make mistakes. Still… he worried.

That’s why it was so hard to apply to college. His parents wanted him to go to university in Korea, that had always been their plan. They tried to be supportive when he only wanted to apply locally, but he knew they were frustrated. It might have been easier if Felix didn’t immediately realize what he was doing… that he was doing the same shit as always, being overprotective and clingy.

There wasn’t a fight over it, per se, but Felix did call him out for it, told him he’d kick his ass if he didn’t apply to the SKY universities like he was supposed to, like he’d studied for as long as either of them could remember.

He didn’t expect Felix to send him a screenshot of his own application for a high school in Seoul the next day, the caption just saying, “you better start helping me with Korean, you know I’m hopeless.”

The Lee’s weren’t thrilled when they found out, both their families sat them down and tried to have an intervention about what they called Chris and Felix’s interdependence, but it never really went anywhere. Even if they said they didn’t like it, the Lee’s liked that Chris watched out for their son, and they couldn’t deny that going to school in Korea, getting away from some of the sketchy kids he hung out with, could be good for Felix. Chris’s parents were just thrilled to have a solution to the university problem.

It was a crazy few months after they both were accepted. The families pooled together to get the two of them a little apartment, and there were countless lectures about responsibility… basically, don’t be dumb and make sure you both stay out of trouble.

Chris and Felix spent hours and hours studying Korean together, pouring over blogs and websites about how to survive in Korea as foreigners…

And then they were here. It was wild, scary. Chris’s classes were intense, and Felix struggled to make friends at first. They got lost on the metro who knows how many times, made so many mistakes those first few months… but every night, they collapsed on the futon in their tiny living room and talked through mouthfuls of jjajjangmyun from the place on the corner, and they were okay.

Things got better with time. They adapted, learned; Felix finally started connecting with some of the kids at school, his grades gradually picking back up, and Chris figured out how to handle his insane professors and course load, meeting a good group of friends, himself.

It was good.

Felix passed his college entrance exams when they came around and his parents flew all the way to Korea to celebrate.

Things were good.

Until they weren’t.

Chris has spent so many fucking nights agonizing over what he should have done differently. He should have told Felix to stay home and drink with him that night, should have told him he didn’t like or trust his new friends from university, should have been more supportive when Felix broke up with the boyfriend he also didn’t like - anything to keep Felix from going to that fucking bar.

Maybe he should have panicked sooner when he stopped answering Chris’s texts that night, or when he woke up the next morning and Felix hadn’t come home. Maybe he should have started making calls earlier in the day, not hesitate to report him missing.

He had so many fucking regrets.

But regrets did nothing to help console Felix’s mother as she weaped on his shoulder a week after his disappearance, or give him the power to do literally anything to keep the police from giving up on Felix’s case when they failed to find so much as a trace of him.

None of Felix’s “friends”, not one person at the trashy bar on the outskirts of Hongdae that Felix loved so much could remember anything about the guy they said he  _ might _ have left with. The security cameras outside of the bar didn’t catch his face, and there was nothing after that. Felix officially disappeared a block from the bar, and there was nothing Chris could fucking do.

Eventually, Felix’s parents had to go home, couldn’t keep waiting around and hoping a miracle would happen. Chris’s mom came to stay with him for a while, made him eat, tried to get him to sleep…

But she had to go home, too. She still had Hannah and Lucas to worry about, Felix’s poor family. 

He told her he’d be fine.

She told him she didn’t have to be his mom to know that was a lie.

oOo

Chris stopped going to school. 

He stopped answering texts or meeting up with friends, barely forced himself to eat on better days. He didn’t sleep so much as he stared at the ceiling… or the wall… for hours.

He would just go into Felix’s empty room and sit on the bed his mom had made for him when she was here… still hoping he’d come back. The room, the sheets, they still smelled like Felix. There’s still an unfinished assignment sitting on his desk and a pile of dirty clothes in the corner… 

He could almost pretend that Felix is on his way home from class, that it hasn’t been weeks since anyone’s seen him.

That he’s coming home.

Chris doesn’t want to admit that he’s lost hope, that he’s becoming convinced that he’ll never see Felix again. He doesn’t want to imagine that. He can’t imagine that… a life without Felix…

It’s wrong, makes him feel sick to even think about.

He doesn’t fucking know what he’d do.

oOo

Chris doesn’t know what changes, but it’s not a sudden thing, until it is.

It slow, creeping, at first, but he starts to gradually exhaust himself with the hopelessness.

He starts to get angry.

Chris finally snaps one day when the police officer that had lead Felix’s case before they abandoned it hung up on him. He’s done, he realizes.

He’s done sitting around and feeling sorry for himself, for Felix.

He’s done not knowing what the fuck happened to his best friend, his little brother.

He’s done relying on everyone else to give a singular fuck about finding Felix.

He’s fucking done.

oOo

Chris still isn’t sleeping, talking to anyone, but he’s eating more, working out again.

It helps a lot to feel a sense of purpose.

It’s not easy to find a Personal Investigator in Seoul, not a legitimate one, at least. There’s two that go nowhere, tell him to give up; they’re promptly fired.

But then he finds Kim Woojin. An unassuming, kind-looking guy his age. He doesn’t have any ads or a website, no official way to find him. It takes weeks of asking around, following internet forums, and digging through social media before he’s even pointed in Woojin’s direction, promised he’s the best.

Chris is unimpressed when they first meet. Woojin is polite and soft-spoken, quiet as he listens to Chris explain what little he knows about Felix’s disappearance, but his eyes are soft, understanding… with something else underneath. Something that reminds Chris of himself.

Something angry.

“And that’s it. That’s all I know. I’ve worked with others, but no one’s been able to find anything and-”

“I’ll do it.” Chris blinked at him, his jaw setting. He’s learned not to get his hopes up.

“Chris, I promise you, I’ll do everything I can to figure out what happened to your brother.”

oOo

Chris doesn’t expect anything, knows it’s dangerous to let himself.

But Woojin texts him after three days, “Found another security camera two blocks down.”

The second text, sent seconds later has Chris’s heart stopping his chest.

“I’ve got them. Following the cameras now. I’ll keep you updated.”

oOo

22 hours later, Woojin was walking through his apartment door with footage and an address.

He made Chris sit down, drink a glass of water, take deep breaths.

“This is going to be the hard part.” It’s not what Chris wants to hear, but… he decided long ago, months ago, now, that he just needs to know. No matter what. If he… If he can’t get Felix back… someone’s going to have to fucking answer for that. 

“There’s something I need you to see.”

“So, they leave the bar here, at 23:37, can’t catch their faces.” Chris has seen this video a million times, Felix’s pixelated body pressed close to a mystery second person for just a few brief seconds before they round the corner and are out of view.

“Once they go down that side street, we lose them right? This is where the police got stuck. There are no cameras in the street they turned down, and they supposedly don’t appear on this next street,” Woojin flicks to a new tab, pulling up a new feed, “but they  _ do.  _ Right there.”

Chris has to squint, trying to make sense of the low-quality, grainy imagine. The thing Woojin had paused on, is pointing to, is nothing more than a blur in the corner of the frame.

“I know it doesn’t look like much, it took me ages to notice it, but if we follow this direction, skip ahead about two blocks, I found this.”

This new video. It’s not a blob in the corner. It’s Felix. It’s actually Felix. His dyed blonde hair, small silhouet, it’s him. 

Chris has to sit back, let himself breathe. Woojin is watching him carefully, patiently giving him time to process.

“And you were able to follow them after this?” 

“Yes… and I was able to get this also… if you’re ready?”

“Show me.”

It’s a still image that Woojin pulls up next, just as horribly pixelated as any other he’d seen… except this image had both Felix and the unidentified man looking almost straight into the camera.

“I’m limited, I can’t exactly enhance the picture more than this, but they went in here,” Another video, two pixelated bodies walking through the door of a sketchy looking apartment building, “it wasn’t easy, and there might be some holes in what I’ve found, but there’s only a handful of tenants that seem to be associated with this address, all of them elderly and definitely not the guy with Felix, except one…”

The next tab that Woojin opened was a Twitter page, the most recent post a selfie of some handsome guy. He looked so... normal... attractive, but innocent and unassuming. “Hwang Hyunjin” was written in the handle in some obnoxious fancy font.

“There’s a lot more digging I have to do to know for certain, but right now, this is our lead suspect.”

“Suspect…”

Silence hung heavy between the two of them for too many agonizing moments, Chris staring at the man on the screen, ignoring Woojin’s intense gaze burning into the side of his face.

“I don’t want to have to show you this next part, Chris.”

“I know you don’t... But I have to know, have to see it for myself.”

Woojin is quiet as he slowly pulls up one last recording. The timestamp in the corner shows that it was around 3am the morning Felix entered the man’s apartment. When Woojin hits play, Chris naturally stares at the front entrance, waiting for someone to come out, but movement on the edge of the screen catches his attention, instead.

There’s a car parked in the street, half out of view of the camera, and someone is walking towards it from the alley.

But they’re not really walking…

They’re dragging something.

Chris quietly excuses himself, walking stiffly into the tiny bathroom he used to share with Felix, and promptly emptying the contents of his stomach into the bowl.

oOo

That night, after Woojin left, Chris let himself grieve.

He curled up on Felix’s bed, clutching pathetically at his soft comforter as he wailed, tears and snot staining the dark fabric. He doesn’t know how long he just laid there and cried. Every time he thought he was beginning to calm down, another wave would hit him, another thought of ‘Felix is never coming back’, ‘Felix was murdered and he was probably in so much pain and who even knows what that monster did to him’.

‘This is all my fault’.

‘I couldn’t protect him the one time it actually mattered’.

The tears and painful thoughts wouldn’t stop. He couldn’t pull himself together, didn’t have the strength to even want to. 

This was all his fucking fault.

Chris is the reason Felix is dead.

There’s so many things he wants to take back, so many moments he wishes he could do over. It’s like there’s this giant, gaping hole in his heart, in his life; he finally has to realize that it’s over, Felix, the one person he always assumed was going to be there, is never coming back.

He’s dead.

He didn’t even get to say goodbye.

So, he screams into Felix’s pillow until he eventually cries himself to sleep.

oOo

Chris wakes up miserable, still in Felix’s bed…

What once was Felix’s bed.

He lays there, waking up, remembering everything that happened last night, trying to process, but the tears don’t come again.

No.

Chris is furious.

He’s furious with himself for letting this happen, but there’s a stronger, even more all-consuming hatred that ignites in his chest the longer he lays there.

He’s going to find the man that did this and make him fucking pay for it.

oOo

Woojin starts sleeping on the futon.

They stay up for days doing nothing but researching, studying the videos… everything keeps leading them back to Hwang Hyunjin.

It’s insane how much information Woojin can dig up on someone in just a few short hours. Most of it is irrelevant, but a lot isn’t. It starts with little things like Hyunjin being just a few months older than Felix, someone he probably wouldn’t worry about going home with. Then it’s the fact that Hyunjin exactly meets the approximation of the man in the videos’s height.

Then… it’s a lot more.

Woojin begins finding some questionable things, like people making callout posts about him on social media, calling him cruel and sadistic, not to trust him… and then they find out about Yang Jeongin.

They weren’t sure why that name popped up with Hyunjin’s every so often... until they found a post about Jeongin’s disappearance. The picture was of a cute kid; he looked so painfully young, his smiling mouth full of braces and bracketed by cute dimples, school uniform just a bit too big on him, making him look even smaller and younger than he already did.

It was a few years ago now, and most of the articles about it didn’t use his name, only referred to him as a School of Performing Arts student, so it was difficult to dig up information like they wanted.

Until the right search criteria pulled up what they needed: “Missing SOPA student’s body found, evidence suggests extensive physical and sexual trauma, fellow student implicated in his murder.” 

Hyunjin was a minor at the time so there was literally nothing official that used his name, but once they knew more details… it wasn’t hard to find social media posts discussing the topic:

‘I’m literally sick, Hyunjin wouldn’t r*pe and murder his best friend you psychopaths, what the fuck is wrong with you??’

‘Is Hyunjin actually seriously being investigated??? Jesus Christ.’

‘Can you all chill for like 2 seconds? I want the sick fuck that killed Innie to rot, but I KNOW Hyunjin didn’t do it. He shouldn’t have anything to worry about. They’ll find the real murderer eventually, the police are just doing their jobs.’

‘Disgusting how quick you all are to defend Hyunjin. Everyone knows his… thing… with Jeongin was weird as fuck.’

“Do we know what the evidence against him was?” Chris’s head is spinning. This fucking monster… 

Felix wasn’t even the first.

“I can’t find  _ anything  _ specific. It doesn’t look like he was even indicted though, I should be able to find  _ something  _ if there was ever a trial,” Woojin sounds just as fucked up and frustrated as Chris feels, “there probably wasn’t enough physical evidence to pin it on him, but there’s no mention of a second suspect anywhere…”

“He just fucking got away with it.”

Once they knew that Hyunjin had a history, they started looking through unsolved missing person’s cases in the Hongdae area where Felix was taken from. Just a few days before Felix, there was another man, just a year younger than Chris and Woojin, Lee Minho. 

He went missing from the same goddamn bar Felix did, and the police never thought to fucking mention it or possibly connect the two.

The pictures they used are all of him surrounded by friends. He’s handsome, and he looks soft and kind in every shot, eyes crinkled, smiling sweetly...

Chris wants to be sick.

Kim Seungmin was another young man that went missing near there, his body never found. An ex-boyfriend, Seo Changbin, was charged with his murder, put in jail, but he’s apparently already trying to appeal his case. Again, the news articles never give enough detail, only saying that Changbin insists there was another man Seungmin had been seeing that was responsible.

It took a lot of digging to find the transcripts of Changbin’s trial, but neither of them were surprised to read that he’d explicitly named Hwang Hyunjin as Seungmin’s real killer. He had testified that Seungmin had explicitly told him he was scared the night before he went missing.

No one gave a fuck, apparently.

He’d still been sentenced to a minimum of 25 years in prison.

As far as they can tell, Hyunjin was never even called in for questioning.

There’s a video of him and his family crying as the sentence is read, as he’s lead away in handcuffs.

They took a break after that, ordered food neither of them ate, just sitting in silence with their respective thoughts brewing.

It was Woojin that spoke first, “I just can’t fucking believe it.”

“I can. I don’t want to, but I can.”

“Yeah, the police are fucked, the government’s corrupt, but how… how could there be so many fucking signs and everyone just ignores them? How can literally everyone be that incompetant?”

“I don’t know. If I had to guess, maybe it’s the homophobia thing. I’ve thought that a lot trying to get people to do something about Felix… no one cares about a gay foreigner.”

“That’s  _ fucked _ .” Chris can only nod in agreement, "I mean… it probably can't help that he looks like he does. If I saw this kid on the street, I wouldn't exactly think 'sadistic, psychopathic serial killer'"

Chris closed his eyes, breathing out deeply through his nose, "He's a handsome young man from a good family, why would anyone suspect a thing."

It was all so fucking fucked.

He hadn't expected this. He had never imagined they'd uncover all this shit, infinite reasons to send this monster to rot in hell as soon as possible.

It fucked him up, thinking about how much pain he and his family were in… multiplied by at least three… four including the man he's fully convinced is suffering in prison for Hyunjin's crime… and he's just been getting away with it.

Fuck.

“I’ve been meaning to ask you… I am unbelievably grateful, seriously, but why are you doing all this for me? I’m not an expert, but it feels like you’re going pretty well beyond the call of duty.” Chris picked at the breading on his chicken, already second guessing his wording as he waited for a response.

Woojin took his time, sitting back and clenching his jaw in thought, “You know… most people who hire me are wanting to catch their spouse cheating on them… or they want me to break into their kid’s computer for them or something…”

“For the first time… this matters. What I’m doing is  _ important _ ,” he took a pause, a deep breath, “I didn’t know Felix, but I feel like I know you, and I know how you talk about him… but that doesn’t even really matter, I suppose. This kid… he’s a fucking murderer, and who knows what else. I want justice for you and Felix. I want this monster to be caught and never be able to do this again.”

“I’m going to kill him.”

“I know.”

  
  


oOo

Chris has followed Hyunjin home from work the past three days.

Woojin tracked the security cameras on his route, found an alley with a big enough blind spot that Hyunjin always cuts through. It’s risky.

Everything about this is fucking dangerous.

If he fails, Hyunjin will run straight out onto a busy street, just a few blocks from his apartment. Chris will lose him, and he’ll definitely not have a second chance. 

He has to make sure he gets him down and into the car Woojin will be waiting to pull up in without drawing any attention. 

There’s a million things that could go wrong, and Woojin tries to talk him into waiting another week or so, making sure they have ever single variable covered, but... 

Yeah, Chris can’t do that.

It’s been eating at him. Ever since that first night that started everything, this whole plan, it’s been driving him fucking insane that he  _ knows _ where the monster lives, where he works, has been within  _ arms reach of him _ , and he still hasn’t done jack shit.

He stays up at night thinking about it, all the things he wants to do to the monster that killed his little brother. How Hyunjin could be out there at that moment stealing the life from someone else’s brother, son, lover...

He needs to make him suffer.

It’s what they all deserve.

Felix will get justice if it fucking kills Chris.

oOo

There is something so fucking incredibly satisifying about watching Hyunjin collapse to the ground.

Chris didn’t need to hit him. Woojin had given him drugs he was supposed to use, and he did use them… after Hyunjin went limp and slammed against the pavement.

Satisfying.

Woojin didn’t mention the blood on the boy’s temple when he pulled the car into the alley and helped load his lax body into the trunk. Woojin was always grounding Chris in reality, keeping him from being overly reckless or impulsive, jeopardizing the ultimate goal, but he had the same kind of hatred Chris did.

They made a good team.

The drive was long and silent. Woojin’s family had a farm a few miles outside of Incheon; a great aunt of his had passed away a few months ago and left it to his older sister who hadn’t had the heart or time to sell the property yet. The house was small, humble, but it had a basement Woojin thought would work to keep Hyunjin in, and the only neighbors were all old and spread out. They shouldn’t have to worry about anyone hearing anything or coming to visit.

It was perfect.

oOo

Chris and Woojin are, predictably, unkind to Hyunjin.

They let his body drag across the gravel driveway as his deadweight is lugged inside, haul him halfway down the stairs before Woojin starts losing his balance and just lets him drop, rolling the rest of the way down. Maybe he just decided to drop him, actually. Chris doesn’t ask.

They prop him up in a metal folding chair, using some lengths of thin rough rope they’d found in storage to bind him to it. Chris knows he probably tied Hyunjin’s wrists too tightly, can already see them starting to go red, but he literally doesn’t give a fuck.

He wants to say that this isn’t like him, but… it is. It’s who he’s always been. What difference is there really between this and him breaking Sam’s stupid nose all those years ago. Sam just made Felix cry once… this is probably a very logical escalation of his violent tendencies when it came to people who hurt his little brother.

He wasn’t fucking around here.

He wanted Hyunjin to suffer.

He needed him to fucking suffer.

oOo

Breaking Hyunjin’s shoulder wasn’t part of the plan, but neither was him pissing his pants and all over the floor.

Something about it, the way Hyunjin started squirming and crying, fucking  _ pissing his pants _ when Chris came down… he just saw red. It infuriated him, that Hyunjin was scared, that he was acting like Chris was the bad guy.

So he hit him and let the chair topple over. Hyunjin’s cries echoed in his head, just pissing him off all the more. The room was already beginning to reek from the mess he made and it just fucking set Chris off.

His control was already so fragile.

He’s annoyed as fuck when he has to drag Hyunjin in his heavy ass chair to the shower to rinse him off, when he has to go hunt down a mop to clean up the floor.

It’s a really fucking bad start.

oOo

It’s only the next time that he goes down that he realizes how bad of shape Hyunjin’s already in.

As soon as he flicks on the lights and looks at the pathetic bound body, he notices how discolored and swollen his shoulder is… oh man.

That must hurt.

And, yeah, Hyunjin asks for his arms to be untied as soon as Chris rips the duct tape off, but then he just keeps his right arm tucked back, whimpering and squirming all miserably. Well, fuck, okay.

He grabs Hyunjin’s shaking bicep and just drags it forward. The younger man literally shrieks in Chris’s ear, but he kind of has to own up to that one. He lost his cool earlier.

He forces it to fold against Hyunjin’s shuddering chest even as the man begs him to stop, knowing it’d be better to have it tucked there… that’s what doctors do right? They put it in a sling? Ugh.

Breaking his shoulder wasn’t productive or anything, Chris just kind of feels like shit about it, now.

He’s not a monster.

He wants Hyunjin to pay, but he already is.

And then he gets intrusive thoughts about Felix, again, and he doesn’t feel so bad anymore. It’s stupid, really, to fret over Hyunjin’s shoulder when he’s probably going to have to fuck him up more anyway.

So he asks.

Asks what Hyunjin did to Felix.

He just gets silence in response, a grimacing stare.

So that’s how it’s going to be.

oOo

Chris tries to play nice.

Woojin tells him to, reminds him that Hyunjin’s already hurt and miserable, showing him kindness might make him talk.

Except that doesn’t fucking work.

It’s been two days already. On good visits, he gets blank stares in response to his questions. On bad visits, he gets Hyunjin being a whiny bitch, ignoring him and just asking for clothes, more food, to lay down… it’s really fucking hard to not just throttle him.

Chris can only take so much. He can only wait and be good and patient for so long. He asks a question and Hyunjin sighs and Chris fucking loses it.

It was one thing he’d thought of when he’d first seen the shower. He saw it in a movie once, temperature control. It was already cold in the basement, which had thus far just made Hyunjin bitch and complain… Chris would give him something to really complain about.

It’s so fucking irritating, how much Hyunjin screams when he so much as touches him. He just gets more infuriated, tightens his grip in the boy’s unwashed hair as he drags him.

The water splashes him when he turns it on and it’s fucking frigid.

Good.

Hyunjin should have fucking learned by now that he doesn’t give a fuck about his screaming and crying.

Felix probably screamed and cried, too. Begged Hyunjin to stop.

Hyunjin was going to fucking rot as soon as Chris gets him to confess, tell him where his little brother’s body is.

That’s the only fucking reason he’s still alive.

oOo

He and Woojin have a good long argument about the shower thing.

Chris is angry so it’s hard for him to understand why Woojin thinks it’s too much. The older man doesn’t ever make a move to go down to the basement and help Hyunjin though, so Chris figures it can’t actually be that bad.

Except it is.

It really is.

When he finally goes back down the stairs, it's already a bad sign that Hyunjin doesn't respond to the light. The only sound is that of running water… splashing against Hyunjin's deathly pale skin.

Fuck.

He runs to the younger man, soaking his shirt as he fumbles to turn off the water. Its fucking ice cold and Hyunjin is just as frozen to the touch.

Chris's hands are shaking as he tries to find a pulse and he nearly cries in relief when he does. Hyunjin can't fucking die yet. Not until he knows where Felix's body is.

Felix deserves a proper fucking burial at the very least.

He runs his hands anxiously over Hyunjin's chest. He needs to warm him up. He tries calling his name, but the boy hardly stirs. Goddammit.

He considers the faucet, again, fumbling until he can adjust the heat. There's no way to turn the shower head away from Hyunjin so he just curses, holding his hand against the spout to block it as he turns the water on. It heats up quickly against his hand, streaming down his arm and soaking him… he doesn't think it should be too hot, right? That doesn't seem right, so he settles for slightly warm before he lets the stream of water hit Hyunjin, again.

But, fuck, maybe that wasn't right, either. Hyunjin starts coming too, but he's obviously distressed whimpering and moaning in pain as he weakly struggles.

Well, fuck.

He just shuts the water off, dragging the chair out of the shower so he can work on the knots more easily. It's so fucking hard with the ropes all wet, and… fuck, how long had the cording been cutting into Hyunjin's skin like that?

His body… it's fucked up… real fucked up.

His skin is so pale from the cold, it just makes the mottled, deep purple bruises around his shoulder, his jaw, his ankle, all the more prominent and intense. He's criss-crossed with shallow gashes and irritated blisters everywhere the ropes touched his skin, the patterns Chris had knotted literally scarred onto him. His fucking wrist… the left one Chris had kept tied back behind him was the worst, the cuts deep and horrific, the ropes sticking to the wounds as Chris tried to pull them away. There was still dried blood caked all around his limp hand.

Fuck.

As he works, Hyunjin slowly becomes more aware, twitching and shivering, shifting under Chris's hands. He’s so fucking  _ cold _ .

Chris literally could have killed him.

Hyunjin’s words are mumbled when he tries to speak, Chris tries to listen but it’s hard to understand him. He’ll have to go get Hyunjin a blanket, maybe some tea to drink or something… he can’t die. Not yet.

“I need to go home…” Oh. Yeah, no. Nice try.

Chris had had a close call here… he’ll help Hyunjin warm up, but he won’t fucking hesitate to do something like this again if the monster continues to refuse to cooperate.

Because that’s what he is. A fucking monster. 

It's easy to forget in moments like this, when he looks so pitiful, harmless… just what Hyunjin is capable of, has  _ done _ . 

Chris isn't allowed to forget.

oOo

Chris’s thoughts feel too messy.

It’s like he’s losing his mind, swinging wildly between wanting to skin Hyunjin alive and feeling like shit for hurting him so much, already.

It’s aggravating, counter-productive; he doesn’t have time for a fucking morality crisis.

“Chris, you know that’s a good thing right? That you’re having second thoughts, feeling bad?” 

“How is it possibly a good thing that I’m wasting time?”

“Are you serious?” Woojin resituates, turning his body to face Chris, his eyebrows furrowed, “That, the guilt, the hesitation, that’s what makes you different from him.  _ You _ aren’t a monster.”

Chris laughed humorlessly, the whole situation was so fucking ridiculous, “Yeah, I have someone tied up in the basement, but at least I’m feeling a little uncomfy with the fact that I almost froze him to death in the shower.”

“Chris.”

“I’ve already told you; I’m going to fucking kill him.”

“Yeah, and then we talked about that more… remember?”

“I’m going to prison, anyway, Woojin.”

“I know. I am, too.”

“No. No, I’ll tell them I threatened your life, forced you to help me… I’m not gonna let you go down for this.”

“What the fuck? No?” Woojin put his hand on Chris’s shoulder, forcing him to turn and face him, “Seriously, Chris, that’s not funny.”

Chris shrugged looking down at his lap, “I’ve made peace with it.”

“That’s not- Chris, you’re not doing that. I’m a part of this, too; anything that happens to Hyunjin is on me, but also, stop changing the subject. You know why we need Hyunjin alive.”

“What does it matter? I go to prison in either scenario, but you know why I don’t fucking trust the police.” Chris shrugged Woojin’s hand off his shoulder, rubbing his palms over his face, “If that fucker gets away with anything, again, I’ll fucking die, Woojin, I can’t handle that.”

Woojin sucked his lips in between his teeth, sitting back, “If you give them Hyunjin, and the confessions, the evidence, they can verify it all with him, make him admit to it again if they have to. If you kill him, we have evidence and a recorded confession, but we’re also murderers who got all that stuff  _ so  _ illegally.”

“What if they don’t believe us?”

“I don’t fucking know.”

oOo

Chris has been losing his fucking mind.

It’s everything, having to deal with Hyunjin every few hours, the rising tension between him and Woojin, having to stay in the empty house all the time, the impending doom of the whole situation… It’s all fucking with his head. 

He’s done.

He’s getting real fucking impatient.

It’s disgusting, the way he can feel Hyunjin’s shattered collarbone shifting under his fingers. His skin there is hot to the touch, flesh firm and swollen, inflamed. He’s getting used to the sounds of Hyunjin’s screams, but they still make his blood fucking boil.

He just keeps thinking about Felix, his mind conjuring all sorts of horrible images of his little brother… looking just like this. Like how Hyunjin looks right now. Sobbing and shrieking in pain, helpless and defenseless as someone  _ hurts _ him for their own sick amusement.

As Hyunjin hurts him for his own sick amusement.

Chris isn’t the monster here.

Hyunjin’s head snaps to the side as he’s hit, bobbing awkwardly on his shoulders. The muscles and tendons are sticking out from his neck, overworked and fatigued… they must hurt.

“I don’t know what you want!”

Oh?

Oh really?

His hands are sweaty, fumbling in anger as he digs his cellphone out of his pocket. His background image… it’s his favorite picture of Felix, just something stupid he took while they were walking by the Han River this past spring. It was one of the first warm, sunny days of the season, and Felix had dragged him out of the apartment. Chris had wanted a picture so of course Felix had made about ten stupid faces, and they’d both laughed way too hard about it, before Chris took this picture of Felix’s big, happy grin. His hair was unstyled and he’d been wearing the hoodie Chris had bought him for his birthday a couple years earlier, the black fabric faded and worn...

He looked soft and warm and comfortable and safe and everything Chris loved, adored, and missed about him.

He wanted this moment back, wanted countless more moments like this with Felix.

It was this monster’s fault he’d never get that.

He can see it, the shift in Hyunjin’s eyes, the exact moment he recognizes the boy in the picture. His gaze flicks over the image, and Chris clenches his jaw so hard his teeth ache with it. He forces his rage down, denies himself the satisfaction of beating this disgusting, filthy man bloody.

“I don’t know that person.”

Chris deserves an award for getting up and walking away.

oOo

Chris loses any and all semblance of patience.

He takes a boxcutter to Hyunjin’s thighs a few hours later. It’s old, a bit rusted and dull; Hyunjin starts begging and panicking as soon as he sees it, but, even when his skin is soaked and glistening with crimson, even when the pool of blood under his chair has Chris pausing, even when he’s growing visibly weaker from blood loss, even when he threatens to saw his fucking dick off, the fucker refuses to say anything of importance.

The next day, Chris forces him out of the chair, slams his head against the concrete, matting his greasy hair with a steadily leaking wound. He continues to insist he doesn’t know what Chris is talking about, and the older man nearly kills him again. 

He doesn’t know how many times he kicked Hyunjin’s pathetic, disgusting body, his boot sinking into the man’s soft abdomen over and over and over again. The haphazardly bandaged cuts on his legs ripped open at some point, brilliant red blossoming and leaking onto the filthy floor.

Chris screamed in frustration, sending the stupid fucking metal folding chair across the room when Hyunjin began coughing up blood.

He’s become convinced that the monster is trying to get Chris to snap and just kill him.

It was a bit of a personal breakthrough, the realization that Hyunjin will do everything he can to die without giving Chris what he needs.

The fucker.

So, Chris walks away, leaving Hyunjin broken and choking on his own blood, curled up pathetically on the unforgiving concrete.

He’s not going to win.

He’s not fucking allowed to win.

Chris won’t let him.

oOo

There is virtually nothing to help Chris keep his sanity in the house.

Woojin’s presence helps; it’s calming, comfortable, but it’s been a while since they had… just a normal conversation. No strategizing, no arguing, no Hyunjin… just… a fucking normal conversation between two human beings.

So, he has nothing to do between visits to the basement other than letting his thoughts eat him alive.

He’ll spend hours lying on the dusty, ancient couch in the living room, scrolling through every picture he has of Felix on his phone. He sorts them into categories, his favorites, ones where Felix is being his goofy, dorky self… pictures with friends and pictures with family, candids and posed… he goes through each shot meticulously, carefully recalling everything he can about the moment it was taken. 

He’ll listen to every one of Felix’s nearly thirty Spotify playlists, scroll through his social media posts until he’s months deep. 

He doesn’t know how to feel anything but rage unless he’s living in memories.

He doesn’t know how to cope unless he’s pretending that none of this is actually happening.

That Felix never went missing.

That he’s not really gone.

That he’s not dead.

For a while, Chris can pretend that he’s still okay, that they both are.

And then he’s back to reality…

It gets more unbearable each time.

oOo

The next time he enters the basement, he doesn’t come empty-handed.

He settles in front of Hyunjin’s grimacing form, propping Woojin’s borrowed laptop on his knee.

“Is it movie night already?” Hyunjin’s weak, his cracking voice missing the sarcastic tone he was probably shooting for by a mile. Chris decides to let it slide.

“I thought this might help jog your memory,” He opens up the video clip of Felix and Hyunjin walking down the street that night, watches the subtle hints that Hyunjin’s interest is piqued, how he shifts, the way his eyes immediately focus on his own face on the screen.

He’s silent as he flips through the security camera footage, completely focused on Hyunjin’s attentive face. The clips are all brief, Felix and Hyunjin’s pixelated forms popping into view for only seconds at a time... It’s not long before video Hyunjin is guiding video Felix into his apartment building.

“Felix enters your apartment,” Chris clenches his jaw, breathes out through his nose, “and a few hours later, he leaves.”

The last clip… he hasn’t watched it since the first time with Woojin, so he focuses instead on Hyunjin’s expression, his furrowed eyebrows, searching gaze… and then the subtle way his jaw drops in realization.

He schools his expression quickly, the moment gone just as soon as it came, but it was enough.

“So,” Chris carefully closes the laptop, getting up to set it off to the side, well out of the way, before he pulling out his next surprise.

The worn leather handle is soft in his grasp, metal cool against his other palm. He watches Hyunjin’s eyes widen as it’s revealed, head softly shaking side to side in denial, “You’re fucking insane.”

“ _ So _ ,” Chris repeats, making a show of twirling the old metal baseball bat in his hands, “I’m going to ask you again.”

“Where is my brother?”

Hyunjin’s trembling, mouth gaping open in panic, “I- I don’t know.”

Chris’s face twists up, “Yes. Yes, you do.”

“You killed him.”

“N-no-”

“Wrong answer.”

The first swing is surreal; smooth metal whistling through the air, the surprisingly jarring sensation of it cracking harshly into its target, the delayed choking gasps and shrieks from the man before him.

It all feels distant, faded... like a dream.

“Where is he?” Chris doesn’t understand, can’t control his anger after all this time, can’t comprehend why Hyunjin won’t just fucking tell him the truth. He just keeps screaming. 

He won’t stop screaming.

So, Chris swings again, aiming for his other shin. He hits it harder, swinging the bat with as much force as he can possibly manage.

He can feel and hear Hyunjin’s bone snap this time.

“Don’t fucking make me hit you again! Where the  _ fuck _ is he?!”

“ _ Stop _ ! Please, oh my fucking  _ god _ !”

The next time metal connects with Hyunjin’s already certainly broken leg, it’s with enough force to shove the chair back several inches.

The monster’s choking on air, trying to curl his body up hopelessly, his bruised abdomen muscles clenching and unclenching uselessly, black and blue ribcage rising and falling with his desperate, rapid breaths.

He still isn’t speaking.

So Chris hits him again.

And again.

oOo

At some point, the bat clattered to the concrete, and Chris’s body followed it down.

He sat there, staring at Hyunjin’s unconscious form for what felt like hours. 

He’s fucking totaled.

His shins are bloody, swollen, and disfigured… just mush. A white bone fragment punctured the side of his calf, red still flowing steadily from the wound.

It’s fucking disgusting.

Hyunjin is fucking disgusting, both inside and out, now.

He pissed himself at some point… again. Maybe he shit himself, too. Chris doesn’t really care.

He doesn’t feel anything.

He’s not… satisfied… nor guilty… He doesn’t feel good or bad about what just happened. What he just did.

Chris is just… numb.

It takes him a long time to make himself get up, to go get Woojin. The older man is pacing in the living room; his eyes are sad… scared, maybe, when they meet Chris’s.

He knows something really bad happened, but Chris doesn’t know what he expects when he makes his way into the basement. He doesn’t ask.

“Oh fuck me, Chris.” Horrified. That’s the expression on Woojin’s face as he races down the stairs, stopping short when he actually gets to Hyunjin’s broken body, hovering like he doesn’t know what to do.

Chris doesn’t know what to do either.

“What the fuck did you do to him?! Take a sledge hammer to his legs?!”

Anxiety... it’s creeping into Chris’s bones in the face of Woojin’s disapproval, his  _ horror, _ “A baseball bat…”

He hardly recognizes his voice.

He doesn’t fucking recognize himself, the person who just-

“Jesus H. Christ.” Woojin slowly sinks to his knees, hands hesitantly reaching out for Hyunjin’s limp form, shaking his head softly…

Chris doesn’t know when or why he started crying.

He just wants it all to be over.

oOo

Woojin takes food, water, and a first aid kit down a few hours later.

They both heard it when the boy woke up, his soft, broken wails rising through the worn floorboards. Chris can’t make himself get up, so Woojin goes instead.

Chris… something’s wrong with him. Something’s been wrong for a long time, but he just-

He’s broken.

oOo

It’s been almost three days since the incident when Chris returns to the basement.

Three days of worried glances from Woojin, of staring at the blank walls in silence, of emptiness.

Hyunjin is propped against the wall, an old blanket wrapped loosely over his thinning shoulders, chair sitting empty in the corner. He’s untied, completely, from what Chris can tell, but… yeah, he supposes it doesn’t matter anymore.

He’s quiet as Chris makes his way down the stairs, his blank gaze silently tracking the movement.

Hyunjin doesn’t say anything, doesn’t move as Chris slowly sinks to the ground in front of him, before his… legs…

Fuck, his legs...

It doesn’t feel right to even call them that anymore.

They stare at each other like that for a while; Chris doesn’t expect Hyunjin to be the one to break the silence.

“Woojin said your name was Chris.”

Hyunjin’s voice is weak, cracking, but the words are confident, indifferent, “Of course Woojin would tell you our names.”

Hyunjin ignores his comment, blinking slowly at him, “How long have I been here?”

“Almost a week, I think.”

The boy nods, his empty eyes boring into Chris’s, “Okay.”

“Where do you want me to start?”

Chris takes several moments to process the question, the difference in Hyunjin’s demeanor. For the first time in days, he feels… something. Surprise? Anger? Sadness?

He’s not sure.

He’s caught off guard, he supposes… doesn’t like that the power has shifted, that Hyunjin is doing this on his terms… doesn’t like how… anticlimactic this feels. After everything.

“Why now?”

Hyunjin tilts his head slightly, his eyes still eerily fixed on Chris’s own, “I’m ready, I guess.”

There’s something, an uneasiness, in Chris’s stomach.

This isn’t how he thought this would go… but there’s nothing to do but take out his phone and open his voice recording app, setting it carefully between their bodies.

“What do you want to know first?” Good question.

“The beginning, Yang Jeongin.” Chris can’t shake the feeling that this isn’t right, that this isn’t how it’s supposed to go.

“I don’t… I don’t know if I’d call that… the  _ beginning _ , but, yeah… I killed Jeongin, he was my… first, I guess...”

After everything, all the denials, the insistance of innocence… hearing him just  _ say _ that, like it’s no big deal… “Why did you kill him? Wasn’t he your friend?”

Hyunjin winced, shifting just slightly against the concrete at his back, “Calling him my friend… that’d be a pretty liberal use of the word.”

Oh, that did not sit right with Chris at all. His fingers twitch at his side, his jaw clenching just a bit… Hyunjin really doesn’t care? He doesn’t care at all, huh? So why the  _ fuck _ was this whole process so difficult?

“What do you mean?”

Hyunjin sighed, shifting, again, “I don’t know, Chris. He was obsessed with me, followed me everywhere… I made him useful until he wasn’t anymore.”

“Define ‘useful.’” It’s bizarre, his emotions coming back after being empty for so long… but now… all he can think of is an oversized school uniform, a dimpled smile full of braces.

“I fucked him,” Hyunjin didn’t hesitate, didn’t break eye contact, “until that got boring.”

“Boring.” Chris’s fists clench, “You killed him because you were bored.”

“Yeah,” Hyunjin tilted his head to the side, his face still completely emotionless, “you said you wanted me to be honest.”

Chris forced himself to take a deep breath, his eyes fluttering closed as he let it out slowly.

“Kim Seungmin.” The classically handsome boy who’s eyes crinkled unevenly when he smiled, smartly dressed with cute circle framed glasses...

“Seungmin? He was… unfortunate.”

Deep breaths, Chris, “What could that possibly mean? Jeongin wasn’t?”

Hyunjin fucking rolled his eyes, “That’s not what I meant. Things just didn’t go how I’d planned. I’d actually kind of liked Seungmin, you know? I wasn’t going to kill him, I really wasn’t… but he started asking questions, freaked out about some things… I guess… I panicked, or something.”

“He was an accident?”

“I guess you could say that… I just lost my temper with him. He wasn’t passive like Jeongin… it was a shame… I really did like him... for a while.”

“You know that Seo Changbin is in prison for his murder?”

“Yeah, that was convenient.”

“Convenient.”

“Yeah. Convenient.”

The image of Changbin’s mother sobbing as her son was led away in handcuffs flashes in his mind.

Chris can feel his composure truly beginning to slip, “You don’t feel any guilt about that at all?”

Hyunjin hummed, still totally relaxed, “Honesty, right?” Chris forced himself to nod, “Well,  _ honestly _ , it just made me feel powerful, untouchable… like I could get away with  _ anything _ . After Jeongin, the police looked at me for a whole two seconds before deciding I couldn’t have done it… all my life, people have underestimated me, thought I was too pretty and stupid to ever amount to much… for once, that worked in my favor. I felt like I was finally... in control of something.”

Chris sits back, forcing his hands to unclench, clammy palms pressing into his jeans. This is just a conversation he has to get through. All of this was for nothing if he can’t get through this one final confrontation.

“Lee Minho?” The aspiring dancer smiling with his friends, unstyled hair and comfortable clothing, his eyes happy and shining...

Hyunjin winced, the first sign of any displeasure, but Chris should have known better than to think he might be capable of any remorse, “Minho… Minho was a fucking mess.”

“After everything with Seungmin… I guess Minho was the first person I sought out actually thinking I was going to hurt him, but… he was just a bitch. He fought it too much, was too difficult. I was gonna keep him around for longer, but… yeah, I couldn’t. He only lasted a couple of days... it was a mess.”

“A mess.”

Chris is going to kill him.

“Where are their bodies, Hyunjin?”

“Their bodies… I’ve been trying to figure out how to explain where exactly, but I don’t know how to,” his good shoulder twitches upward in an aborted motion, face twisting, “there’s a campsite an hour outside of Seoul that I used to go to with my parents. They’re about halfway down the hiking trail and on the right, a ways into the trees.”

The nonchalance, the indifference. Something clenches in Chris’s gut.

“And that’s where Felix is, too.”

“Felix?”

Chris grinds his teeth; he just needs the fucker to say it. Then this can all be over, “Yes. Felix. My brother.”

“Why would Felix be at the campsite?”

He’s going to fucking lose it.

“Hyunjin. Where is Felix?”

There’s something in Hyunjin’s eyes, some kind of emotion or… something… Chris can’t place it. His gut clenches, again, “See… the thing is… Felix is kind of a complicated situation.”

“What could you possibly mean by that? Just tell me where he is.”

He’s done.

He has zero interest in humoring Hyunjin for a second longer.

“What I mean is that I never killed Felix.”

Chris can’t follow. He doesn’t want to. He realizes it now, the glint in Hyunjin’s eye… he’s playing with him.

“I don’t know what I’ve done to give you the impression that you can fuck around with this. We know you killed Felix.”

“But you  _ don’t _ because I  _ didn’t _ … well, not exactly, anyway-”

“I swear to fucking god-”

“He’s at my apartment, Chris.”

What?

“That body? From the video? It was Minho’s. I didn’t have an opportunity to get rid of it until I already had Felix.”

Chris’s heart stops, dread creeping deep into his bones long before his brain catches up, before he fully realizes what’s going on.

“I never killed Felix.” It’s so small, barely there… Chris should have missed it, but he didn’t. Hyunjin’s lips quirked upward for just a split second, “Why would I kill him? He was perfect.”

“He was still alive when you took me-”

“You’re lying.”

“I always tied him up when I left, couldn’t have him getting loose, you know.”

“Stop.”

“I don’t exactly know how long someone can last without food or water-”

“Shut the fuck up!”

“I’m just being honest! Isn’t that what you wanted, Chris?!”

He’s on Hyunjin, now. Doesn’t remember moving, but he’s straddling his hips, hand clenched in dirty hair, “How fucking  _ dare _ you?”

“Don’t get mad at me, Chris. I’m not the one that killed him-”

Hyunjin’s head slams against the concrete behind it, choking a gasp from the monster underneath him, “Take it back!”

“What do you mean?” Hyunjin’s breathing hard, his eyes wild, fingers gasping at Chris’s sleeves, “Nothing either of us can do to change the fact that  _ you _ killed your little brother.”

Chris’s mind breaks.

He doesn’t know what’s happening, everything suddenly so far away.

Hyunjin’s shrill, choking cries.

The sound and feeling of his skull cracking against concrete under Chris’s hands.

The hot liquid pouring over his fingers.

Everything.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comments and questions are always wanted and appreciated, here or on Twitter or CuriousCat.
> 
> Come tell me what you thought, please!
> 
> Twitter: [BenGene97](https://twitter.com/BenGene97)  
CC: [BG1997](https://curiouscat.me/BG1997)

**Author's Note:**

> Yikes.
> 
> Comments and questions are always wanted and appreciated, here or on Twitter or CuriousCat.
> 
> Come tell me what you thought, please!
> 
> Twitter: [BenGene97](https://twitter.com/BenGene97)  
CC: [BG1997](https://curiouscat.me/BG1997)


End file.
